Sunday September 1st: It is what’s within

Uproot wrong thoughts and attitudes before they grow

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Where does evil spring from and what is the solution for eliminating it from our lives? Jesus deals with this issue in response to the religious leaders’ concern with ritual defilement – making oneself unfit to offer acceptable sacrifice and worship to God.
The religious leaders were concerned with avoiding ritual defilement, some no doubt out of fear of God, and others out of fear of pleasing other people. Jesus points his listeners to the source of true defilement – evil desires which come from inside a person’s innermost being. Sin does not happen. It first springs from the innermost recesses of our thoughts and intentions, from the secret desires which only the individual soul can conceive.
Lord Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit and make my heart like yours – on fire with love and holiness. Strengthen my will that I may always choose to love what is good and to reject what is evil. (Don Schwager);